


Anomalies and a Loss

by meteorstormready



Category: Star Trek, Star Trek: Deep Space Nine, Star Trek: Voyager
Genre: Gen, Missing Persons, Mystery, Not Beta Read, Post-Canon, more characters but they're spoilers, tags will update as fic progresses, vague crossovers
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-11-21
Updated: 2019-06-02
Packaged: 2019-08-27 06:07:54
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 2,473
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16696912
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/meteorstormready/pseuds/meteorstormready
Summary: Bajor’s new Kai has vanished. The Vulcan Science Ministry is up to something suspicious. Tuvok gets pulled out of retirement when his old friend, Admiral Janeway, asks him to investigate.Takes place some years after the end of Voyager.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Hi-ho! This is the first time in a very long time I’ve been able to write, which is very exciting! I hope to make this into a series of mysteries featuring Detective Tuvok, but we'll see. I’m currently facing health and financial problems, so updates may be slow.

               “Listen, Tuvok,” Admiral Janeway said, as she reclined with a cup of tea next to her old friend and former comrade. “I didn’t come here just to catch up. I’ve got some… Business I need your help with.”

               “I suspected as much,” Tuvok answered in his usual crisp manner. He had retired from Starfleet for the second time several years back, and he and Janeway often visited each other. But this time, it was clear her usual relaxed demeanor had a tense undercurrent.

                Janeway smiled. “I just can’t hide anything from you, can I?”

                Tuvok recalled the last time Janeway had thrown him a surprise birthday party. “Considering how long I have known you, it may be ill-advised to try.” He took a sip from his own teacup and winced.

                “Kathryn, are you aware that oolong is intended to be steeped at a lower temperature for a shorter period of time?”

                “I know, I know, but it tastes more like coffee this way.” She cleared her throat.

                “I don’t know if you’ve heard, but Bajor’s Kai came to speak at the Vulcan Ministry of Science’s conference discussing the effects of religion on biology.” She swallowed some of her tea before continuing. “The fact is, she’s disappeared. And, well, after what happened with Kai Winn and the Emissary ten years ago, we really feel that we need to keep this under wraps so we don’t cause a panic.”

                “I understand. Shall I contact my associates in the Ministry?”

                “No, no, we’ve got that taken care of.” Janeway waved her hand in dismissal. “What we want is someone on the inside to do some investigating for us.”

                One of Tuvok’s eyebrows piqued slightly, but other than that he remained completely composed. “And is there some reason why you can’t use a Vulcan on active duty?”

                “They wouldn’t have your instinct for this, and besides, you’re a respectable member of Vulcan society who is still innocuous enough to sneak around. This isn’t the only strange incident in recent history involving the Ministry, you know.” Janeway punctuated this by wagging her finger at him. “Think of it as a personal favor for your dear friend.”

                “I appreciate what you are trying to say, but as a Vulcan, I do not act on instinct.” Tuvok looked away for a moment, giving it some thought. It was true that he had heard some unusual things about the Ministry as of late, and he did have concern for the struggles of Bajor…

                “Very well. I accept your proposal.”

                “Thank you so much!” Janeway squeezed Tuvok’s shoulder affectionately, a gesture he would have disliked if it had been any other human. “It won’t take very long, I’m sure. You’ll be back home, tending your lovely garden with your lovelier wife, before you know it!”

~*~

                Tuvok’s first step had been going directly to the offices of the Vulcan Council of Science, but they were eerily empty. There had been several of the junior staff, and when he them asked about the Council members, they gave him some vague information about a special retreat.

                He then went to the Vulcan Academy of Science to see if he could find a higher ranking member. The revered Academy stretched across a large amount of land, and a bit of Vulcan’s upper atmosphere as well. At the central office, he was told that the main computer was undergoing a long-needed overhaul and they couldn’t use it to locate or contact anyone until it was done, or unless it was an emergency. The clerk said he was welcome to look around the grounds as long as there was no disturbance.

                Since then, Tuvok had methodically gone through room after room, floor after floor, building after building. The place was strangely empty, except for the occasional lab group fully engrossed in their work. Tuvok thought that something was odd about that, most Vulcans who earned a place at the Ministry weren’t inclined to leave, but he supposed there could be an ordinary explanation.

                He was almost done going through the Wing of Contextual Mathematics when he found a door which lead to a small stairwell in the back of a standard lecture room. It was very oddly placed; stairs were almost never connected directly to lecture rooms at the Ministry. They were usually separated by halls, and more than that, the stairs themselves were strange.

                It was clear that there had been no place for them in the original blueprint. They appeared to be made of transparent aluminum. The width of the stairs varied dramatically, sometimes enough for three people to walk side by side, often just enough for him to get through if he turned a little sideways. They were fairly steep, but instead of handrails, there were little handholds cut into the walls.

                Tuvok sighed and started down. Mathematics, like all forms of science, required creativity, but Vulcan mathematicians usually had more than was good for them. He supposed it was better than ancient humans and their number cults, but only just.

                He had only gone one story when he noticed the strange shift in lighting. Something below was glowing, pulsating. Occasionally a few beams of light would pierce through the entire staircase, dance on a wall or two, and then move off.

                As Tuvok reached the bottom and turned a corner, he was blinded by what he saw. He put his hand up to shield his eyes, and though they adjusted to the light, he found what he saw more and more disorienting. It was like a small sun had been surrounded by floating prisms, made of moving shards of mirror and glass, shifting and reflecting, reflecting and shifting…

                The phenomenon began to move as though it were reacting to his presence. The shards nearest to him pulled away slightly, only to then rush forward and pierce right through him.

                He found himself filled with memories, memories that were both his and not his. Meditating with Kes in the airponics bay. Being made blind by Seven’s mistake. Staring down Suder on the Maquis ship. Teaching Harry Kal-toh. Crashing into a planet of ice. Being old, and having the threads of his mind falling apart tens of thousands of light years from home…

                “Sir! Sir! Come away from that, sir!” Tuvok turned to find a young Vulcan student running towards him from a shielded lab room adjacent to the staircase. The Vulcan wore the environmental suit with the Maths insignia along with what could have been a look of panic on a human.

                The student wasn’t wrong to be alarmed. As Tuvok finally pulled away from the light, he began to feel weak. He stumbled slightly, and the student held an arm out to steady him as he tilted forward.

                “Wh-what is that, student?” He attempted his best to hide the quaver in his voice, and the student politely acted as if they hadn’t heard it.

                The student began maneuvering Tuvok into the lab, buying themselves as much time as possible to try to figure out what to say. After they gestured to him to sit in one of a few chairs vaguely arranged in a half-moon shape around a table and removed their helmet, there was no option left but to tell him flat-out.

                “Our working theory… Is that it’s a smashed Bajoran orb.”


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Ngl writing vulcans has been nice because I tend to type more formally when nervous anyway. :v

                Tuvok was halfway down to the chair when the student said this, and for a few brief moments, he froze.  His skin felt taught across his whole body, like it was splitting into the prisms that surrounded the orb’s source. Something was very, very wrong, and it wasn’t just that the Vulcan Ministry had an appropriated and defiled scared object from a people who had been appropriated from and defiled for years stashed in their basement.

                He had only been still for a moment, but he knew which two questions he needed immediate answers for before he finally plunked down into his seat.

                “How did the Vulcan Ministry of Science…,” he hesitated as he looked for the right word to use in front of the student. The memory of firing pistols side by side with Chakotay at the Hirogen tugged at his mind, but he found the word he was looking for and pushed it aside. “ _Acquire_ such a precious object?”

                The student looked like Spock had them in a corner and was attempting to get them to “volunteer” for an undercover mission on Romulus.

                “Well sir… I’m not aware of all the details myself. I believe it was given long ago to a Minister as part of a concession made by the Cardassians. Texts describe it as a regular, unseparated orb originally, but what caused it to become like it is today is unknown. Most records from that time have been partially or entirely destroyed, possibly by the event that transformed it."

                “And I suppose that the Ministry contacted the Kai in order to attempt to return the orb.” Tuvok recalled the sensation of pushing his hand against another’s throat. But it wasn’t his hand… It was Suder’s. It wasn’t his, right?

                “No, we did not. It is very important to our studies. Great advancements in physics and mathematics have been made bec--”

                Tuvok felt again his bitterness at ‘losing’ the human girl he had had a crush on. His heart began beating in his ears. “No matter how great the advancement aided by studying the orb, its positivity is negated when it has been built on the disregard for and suffering of others. If the Ministry will not return it to Bajor, then I will.” He began to stand up as he finished.

                “Wait, no, you can’t!” The student leapt up, fast even for a Vulcan. They were _displaying_ emotion. Like a human.

                A feeling akin to alarm fluttered briefly across Tuvok’s mind. There was a small but definite chance that they were half Vulcan and that this was perfectly normal. But the chance that they were fully Vulcan and something was very, very wrong was almost a certainty.

                He fell back on the training from his years working as a Security Officer. “ _Sit down_. I will act as I deem necessary. If you have any additional information you have been withholding, I suggest you share it immediately.”

                The student’s knees quaked as they obeyed. “We… We don’t know how she found out, but the Kai came here. She knew, somehow. She was irate, furious, she got right past our security.”

                Tuvok had noticed they were rather lacking in that area, but he could hardly find fault with the Kai’s actions so far. “Continue.” He kept hearing his heart palpitating.

                “The fractal dispersal pattern around the orb changed when she got within 3 meters. I think... That it recognized her, that it was opening up for her.” The young Vulcan swallowed. “Every documented case of someone approaching the orb anomaly ends with them being pureed by the prisms, however, she was untouched. She vanished from sight as she approached the center.”

                Tuvok knew what he must do. Lying went against everything in him as a Vulcan, but he would do it for the sake of others. “I understand why secrecy has been demanded. I will leave to find one of your superiors to discuss what to share with the federation.” Tuvok had no intention of doing that. The second he got to a computer terminal he would place a call to the Vedek Assembly.

                The student was visibly relieved. “I, and many others, appreciate your understanding.”


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sometimes I feel bad that my chapters are fairly short but hey, at least I'm writing!

        “Hold on,” said the grainy voice emanating from his screen, “you’re saying Vulcans have been experimenting on an orb for how long now?”

        Tuvok let out a small bit of air before answering, something that was dangerously close to a sigh. “The Vulcan Ministry of Science. And I am unsure of how long a period of time, but within the last hundred years.” He had expected the Bajorans to be upset about this, and they were rightfully so, but he had been passed from Vedek to Vedek over the last two hours and had had to walk each through the entire story.

        “And tell me again, the Federation has known and allowed this for how long?”

        Bureaucracy is its own special kind of hell.

        He was about to answer that he wasn’t working in an official capacity, and that as far as he knew the Federation had no idea, when suddenly there was a rumble. He glanced out of the viewscreen and saw the Ministry building that housed the orb being swallowed by light.

        A shockwave rocked his shuttle, the communiqué blinking and fizzing out. He braced himself against the control panels, his shoes grinding into the floor.

        Then, there was no floor. He was standing, his blood rushing through his ears. He could see nothing, and then many things.

        _This is like before, with the shattered orb,_ he thought to himself. _If it is the orb, I must find a way to back out before it swallows me._

        “It’s too late, you know.” A voice called from behind him and he turned to see a human in a red captain’s uniform. “You’ve been swallowed already. Better find a way to deal with it.” The person grinned.

        This wasn’t a human, he felt somehow. “You are the Emissary.” Tuvok stated this as fact in the usual Vulcan fashion, but he was guessing more than anything. He wasn’t very familiar with the Federation’s past history with Bajor, but he knew the jist of it.

        The smile faltered in Benjamin Sisko’s eyes. “Yes. What’s left of him, and more than him.”

        “Tell me, how do I return to my shuttle?”

        Sisko tsk’d and started pacing. “So this is what it’s like to have to deal with impatient corporeal beings. Well, I guess I deserve it after my first few times here.”

        Tuvok noticed the plural right away. “What other corporeal beings are here?”

        “Uhhh… From your time frame…” Sisko squinted. “Hang on, I’m trying to count. It’s difficult when you see all of them at once.”

        Tuvok waited silently while Sisko made many, many gestures with his hands. He moved them both like he was grouping objects and like he was writing calculations on a chalkboard.

        “Let’s see… There’s the Kai… The Kai’s ranjens… The students and faculty from several of the Vulcan Ministry of Science’s buildings… And you. I think that’s it.”

        “And how do we leave?”

        “Leaving? Is that all you care about?”

        “I was sent to retrieve the Kai before a major incident occurred between Bajor and the Federation. As a major incident has already occurred, I can at least fulfill my duties to retrieve the Kai.”

        Sisko tsk’d. “Before that, I need you to help me.”

        “Help you with what?”

        “I need you to take me back to Deep Space Nine.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Tuvok, at the beginning of this chapter: Not All Vulcans

**Author's Note:**

> I’d love to see your theories if you have any! Even so, I don’t actually have a clear idea of what’s going to happen lmao. It’s more fun for me to write that way. I’m not very up-to-date on extended Star Trek material (meaning books, games, etc), so please bear with me if you’re into those.  
> I hope to have crossovers with other sci-fi series in the feature, but for now there are/will be only vague references.


End file.
